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Indigenous Peoples Day is important for all of Nashville

Albert Bender
Published 12:00 p.m. CT Nov. 15, 2017

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Nashvillians hold a demonstration for the recognition of Indigenous Peoples' Day prior earlier this year. The event was sponsored by the American Indian Coalition. (File)(Photo: Joey Garrison/ Tennessean)Buy Photo

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Metro took a good step by honoring Native Americans over Columbus; Tennessee should do the same.

The Metro Council passed a resolution on Oct. 3 proclaiming the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day.

This resolution was sponsored by Councilman Brett Withers, who nobly stepped forward as standard bearer for this measure.

It was co-sponsored by Council members Fabian Bedne, Nancy VanReece, Colby Sledge, Mina Johnson and Freddie O’Connell.

The Indigenous community is grateful to all of the above sponsors and to those other Council members who voted for morality, honor and decency.

The decision by Metro Council followed an Oct. 1 proclamation, signed by Mayor Megan Barry, declaring the same. The mayor’s history-making proclamation recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day was also greatly appreciated by the Indigenous community.

The next step is recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day by the state of Tennessee.

All should be cognizant that this state is named after the ancient Cherokee town, Tanase.

Indigenous Peoples Day has become a movement that is sweeping the nation from coast-to-coast. At least 40 other major cities and five states recognize the day.

In reference to Christopher Columbus the truth must be disclosed. Columbus was a hard-boiled racist, peddler of pedophilia, mass murderer and enslaver of the Indigenous peoples of what are now the West Indies.

Columbus first landed in the Bahamas and promptly began committing atrocities against the local Native people, the Lucayos. He captured hundreds of them, chained them below decks and took them to Spain and sold into slavery.

Others he fed alive to his hunting/war dogs. Columbus was highly literate and kept abundant diaries in which he documented his atrocities.

But by far the most unspeakable depravity was the feeding of live Indigenous infants and other children to their ravenous war dogs to be devoured.

These dogs, huge Spanish mastiffs, were armored with leather. History does not record this unthinkably monstrous atrocity anywhere else in the annals of human history. This a horror that transcends all words of description.

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The soldiers of Columbus ran open markets displaying dismembered Indian body parts for sale as dog food. Native people were chopped up and fed to the dogs to whet their appetites for Indian flesh (this is all documented in Spanish journals). Indigenous people were constantly fed to these mastiffs.

Also, Columbus copiously recounts of rewarding his men with Native females, for sexual slavery. He routinely records that “girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.”

The population collapse was immense and horrific. To give some idea of the huge scope of the genocide, when Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola in 1492, it was inhabited by over 8 million Taino Indigenous people. In 1496, by Spanish census, It was 3 million.

An incredible 5 million human beings had perished in a scant four years. In 1516, only 12,000 remained. Within 24 years nearly 8 million had died in a firestorm of enslavement, murder (by means most savage) and genocide.

The book, "The American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World," by prominent historian David Stannard provides a horrific narrative of the atrocities of Columbus in the Indies.

Indeed, Stannard writes: “ The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.”

Albert Bender(Photo: Submitted)

I cannot state strongly enough, that this is a book that everyone who is literate should read. It is a volume that can change lives. But it is not for the faint of heart.

As for this municipality, Indigenous Peoples Day was a stellar step forward in history for the acknowledgment of its Indigenous peoples, past and present.

This a measure of which all of Nashville can be proud and which can be celebrated by all the citizens of this city.